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<p><i>Response to Swinburne</i>: Richard Swinburne (this volume) extends a form of theodicy which he has defended previously (e.g., 1998). Its central element is the high value it assigns to morally good or bad difference-making resulting from free choices—for the choosers themselves, for those impacted by their choices, and for the world as a whole—and (relatedly) to the ability to form our own character. It proposes that it is permissible for God to create a world like ours that contains a mixture of moral good and evil, including ‘horrendous’ evil, for the sake of enabling us to make a moral difference in the lives of others and to significantly contribute to the shaping of our own moral character. The good of freely participating in the sort of person we become is realized not only by how we choose to act towards others but also in how we choose to respond to the consequences we experience from their actions towards us. In what follows, I will offer brief support for three claims: (1) While it is plausible that the closely connected goods Swinburne identifies are ones that God would be concerned to promote in us, it is also plausible that God would be concerned to promote the good of distinctively human ‘flourishing’ in a wide-ranging sense. If we accept that this is so, we will likely conclude that Swinburne’s central theodical strategy is at best incomplete. (2) Swinburne extends his theodicy in response to an objection that the kind of moral choices we face are unfairly distributed. The extension accords a central role to a pre-heavenly afterlife that is like our present lives. Insofar as this post-mortem hypothesis is advanced to make room for God’s correcting deficiencies in how His plan for us unfolds in the present life, it opens itself to the objection that it implies that what we actually observe disconfirms theism (to some extent). (3) In one respect, Swinburne’s response to the charge of unfairness concedes too much. Fairness does not require that the internal and external obstacles to attaining deification that we each face must be of roughly equal strength. The profound differences in the lives that humans lead over time and space may enrich the post-mortem communion of saints, a collectively-shared good of great value.</p>

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Freedom, flourishing, and fairness

  • 期刊论文

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  • 发表日期：

    2025年9月17日

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  • Timothy O’Connor

摘要

Response to Swinburne: Richard Swinburne (this volume) extends a form of theodicy which he has defended previously (e.g., 1998). Its central element is the high value it assigns to morally good or bad difference-making resulting from free choices—for the choosers themselves, for those impacted by their choices, and for the world as a whole—and (relatedly) to the ability to form our own character. It proposes that it is permissible for God to create a world like ours that contains a mixture of moral good and evil, including ‘horrendous’ evil, for the sake of enabling us to make a moral difference in the lives of others and to significantly contribute to the shaping of our own moral character. The good of freely participating in the sort of person we become is realized not only by how we choose to act towards others but also in how we choose to respond to the consequences we experience from their actions towards us. In what follows, I will offer brief support for three claims: (1) While it is plausible that the closely connected goods Swinburne identifies are ones that God would be concerned to promote in us, it is also plausible that God would be concerned to promote the good of distinctively human ‘flourishing’ in a wide-ranging sense. If we accept that this is so, we will likely conclude that Swinburne’s central theodical strategy is at best incomplete. (2) Swinburne extends his theodicy in response to an objection that the kind of moral choices we face are unfairly distributed. The extension accords a central role to a pre-heavenly afterlife that is like our present lives. Insofar as this post-mortem hypothesis is advanced to make room for God’s correcting deficiencies in how His plan for us unfolds in the present life, it opens itself to the objection that it implies that what we actually observe disconfirms theism (to some extent). (3) In one respect, Swinburne’s response to the charge of unfairness concedes too much. Fairness does not require that the internal and external obstacles to attaining deification that we each face must be of roughly equal strength. The profound differences in the lives that humans lead over time and space may enrich the post-mortem communion of saints, a collectively-shared good of great value.